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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana ARC Review


Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana
Published by Razorbill
Pre-Order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Tara Krishnan, navigating Brierly, the academically rigorous prep school she attends on scholarship, feels overwhelming and impossible. Her junior year begins in the wake of a startling discovery: A message from an alternate Earth, light years away, is intercepted by NASA. This means that on another planet, there is another version of Tara, a Tara who could be living better, burning brighter, because of tiny differences in her choices.

As the world lights up with the knowledge of Terra Nova, the mirror planet, Tara’s life on Earth begins to change. At first, small shifts happen, like attention from Nick Osterman, the most popular guy at Brierly, and her mother playing hooky from work to watch the news all day. But eventually those small shifts swell, the discovery of Terra Nova like a black hole, bending all the light around it.

As a new era of scientific history dawns and Tara's life at Brierly continues its orbit, only one thing is clear: Nothing on Earth—and for Tara—will ever be the same again.



How I wish I DNFed this book. It was so boring and didn't hold my interest in the slightest. I kept waiting for it to pick up, and to learn more about Terra Nova—the mirror planet to Earth—but the plot had little to do with it. The mirror planet's purpose in the book is basically to get everyone in the book to toss aside their morals, responsibilities, and families to chase after their lost dreams at any cost. This book actually reminded me of Mean Girls, except if Regina George was actually nice.


Mirror in the Sky focuses around Tara, the main character, and how she becomes a member of the "in-crowd." Tara has a constant chip on her shoulder and seems to hate everything and everyone around her for no obvious reason. Until she becomes part of the "in-crowd" and then her hate for everything calms down a bit, but it didn't make her likable. I also didn't like the writing. There was a lot of info-dumping, mixed in with long explanations of scientific theory that made me wonder if the reason for the long explanations was that the author didn't fully understand it, so she took textbook information and pasted it into her book. It's sad, because the concept of this book sounded really amazing but unfortunately, there aren't any positive things I can say about it.


1) The idea that there is a mirror planet with mirror versions of ourselves is really cool. I've never read any book with anything like this. Too bad this book didn't focus on that aspect at all.



1) I really hate the main character Tara. She is really hateful towards everyone and everything—even the people she seems to care about. When she does like someone, she becomes obsessed with them but you're not sure why and it's not long before she goes back to disliking that person again. Yet, she is supposed to be the likable character and the victim of Halle (the Queen Bee) and of the book, but to me it felt like the opposite.



2) The dialogue. If you know me, then you know I loooove dialogue. The conversation between characters is usually my favorite part in books. In Mirror in the Sky there is a lot of one-sided dialogue, meaning other characters will say something to Tara but most of the time she doesn't respond outwardly.

3) The characters all say "like" constantly. I assume this is the author's way to make her characters sound like they are in high school, but it was extremely annoying to read. Also, all of the characters sound exactly the same. There are no distinctive voices or personalities.

4) The relationships are created in a blink of an eye, and torn apart in the same fashion. This makes it impossible to take any of the relationships seriously.

5) I can't stand it when books have long scientific explanations. They're boring and usually don't add anything substantial to the understanding of the plot. This is exactly the case in Mirror in the Sky.

16 comments:

  1. Wow! Too bad. The synopsis had me so excited too and then I saw your one star rating and I was couldn't fathom it being that bad, but yup. Sounds like all things I would tell someone to edit out before publishing. But then not sure she would have had to find a different story sounds like. Too bad.

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    1. Yeah, it's that bad. I was really disappointed. Honestly, this book shouldn't even have the whole "mirror planet" in it because it has pretty much nothing to do with the actual plot.

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  2. I watched the movie few years ago with the similar premise: with planet that mirrored earth and ppl living in it were sth like twins to ppl on Earth. I think it is called "Another Earth". It was such a good movie!

    Too bad this book wasn't working for you...

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    1. Interesting! I've never heard of that movie.

      Yeah, it was pretty disappointing. Oh well, there are other books out there for me to love =)

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  3. HAHA, looks like we both had bad luck with our last two reads! xD At least I got an entertaining review! Safe to say I'll be avoiding this one!

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    1. I actually read this one a while ago but held onto the review for a while. I would definitely not recommend this one haha.

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  4. Ahhh this sounds oh so good. And then I read your review and was like "Eh maybe not" haha

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    1. Sorry about that! Maybe you would like it more than me? I just wanted more about Terra Nova and this book doesn't have any of that.

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  5. Noooo I've been SO excited about this book. Thanks for letting me know, I'm now VERY wary and will take this all into consideration when I read...

    Rachel @ A Perfection Called Books

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    1. I was really excited about it too but unfortunately it was a total miss for me. Maybe you'll like it more than me? Fingers crossed!

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  6. Ah this stinks :/ it sounds AMAZING but why would it NOT focus on the mirror world? And from the sounds of this mean girl plot, I think I will pass this one :( sadly... sorry you didn't like it as much. But great review!

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    1. That is the question, isn't it? I really wanted it to focus on that but just regular high school drama except an alternate ending to the end of Mean Girls. I'm glad you liked the review but I definitely wouldn't recommend this one.

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  9. I started reading this book a few days ago, but I haven't finished it yet because I have been so bogged down with my assignment that I need to find any Assignment Help UK based service to help me finish it. I'm hoping to be free soon and be able to resume my reading.

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  10. This is the nice book and I want to read this book thanks for posting this and keep it up and give me some more information about this book.

    ReplyDelete